


you met me when the sun was down

by plinys



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-28
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-09-20 11:21:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9488813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: Lena accidentally stumbles on the 'other' side of the Luthor family business, but her heart can't fully commit to Lex and Lillian's hatred of aliens. Not once she meets Kara, the alien in the green cage, who looks at her with eyes that are too soft for this cruel world.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I got the prompt, "Current mood: Incandescent swamp gas." and this fic came out of that. Don't think too hard about how the prompt matches up to the fic okay.

 

There's a girl in a cage in the basement.

Lena isn't supposed to be down there. Isn't supposed to know she exists.

Lena is supposed to nod and smile and say how thankful she is to be a Luthor. She's supposed to look the other way when Lex seems to lose himself to his planning, or when their mother disappears into another black van under the guise of a business trip.

Lena is having a hard time doing any of that.

Especially given what she can clearly see in front of her.

The girl says something - it's not English. Not any language that makes sense to Lena. It sounds like wind chimes, but violent ones, being struck together like a storm.

It sounds beautiful.

Lena has always known she was attracted to other girls, there was something about them, the soft but feral nature.

Something she sees clearly in the girl before her.

Of course the girl before her is also scared.

Terrified.

"An alien."

She jumps. Unaware that she had been found. Though now that she thinks about it, it's more surprising that it took so long for Lex to find her. There's no way he didn't have alarms installed down here.

She would wonder why he let her look so long, if it wasn't so obvious.

Lena knows her brother.

She knows exactly why he let her have this moment, let her see the alien in her cage.

There's so many questions Lena wants to ask.

How?

Why?

When?

Where?

"Who?"

Lex is silent for long enough that Lena has to turn away from the girl in the cage to look at her brother.

So she repeats her question, "Who is she?"

He tsks at her. It's a sound Lena is familiar with. For however much her brother loves her - he will always see her as being less intelligent than he is.

"It's not a who, dear sister, but a  _ what _ ?"

 

**

 

Two days later Lex shows her how to work the security cameras, enthused by the idea of Lena following in his footsteps. Following into the real family business - the legacy left by their mother rather than their father. It is not Lex Corp which defines them as Luthor’s.

But rather a darker prejudice which lingers deep in their shadows. 

“They were sent here to destroy us,” Lex explains, when he notices her eyes once again lingering on the cameras too long, “Not just it, there’s others like it out there. Thousands of them, disguised to look just as human as you or I. You understand, Lena, I’m doing this to protect the country, if not the whole world.”

Lex is always the type to see himself as a hero.

And Lena, can’t help but let her brother slip into that role, let him monologue at her, gesturing around his secret lair with a clear pride. 

These are the cards that they have each been dealt. 

Still there linger in her, a small part of her. The part that isn’t caught up in the fear that her brother’s pitches, the ones that seem stolen from science fiction films, could end up real.

That remembers the strange language the girl had spoken, and the  _ fear  _ in her own eyes. 

Lex was still a hero.

His heart was in the right place.

But maybe not all aliens were here to hurt them. 

“What if,” she says, keeping her tone as casual as she can, “One of the aliens were sent here to help us? To fight the bad aliens or-”

“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. This is why I’m the smart one.”

 

**

 

Lillian Luthor has never seen Lena as her daughter.

Not really.

But when Lex stands there beside her, proudly showing off their latest creation, a device to detect aliens hiding behind her. 

Lena thinks for a second she considers it. 

 

**

 

The girl is still there in the cage, but now Lena knows there are so many more people - no,  _ aliens  _ \- hidden down beneath them. Locked away, to protect the world. To protect her.

But sometimes Lena doesn’t feel protected.

Sometimes she disengages the alarms, knowing even as she does this that Lex will still have a way of knowing she was down there, and sits on the floor across from the cage.

Lena has catalogued the girl by now, and calling her a girl seems wrong.She’s nearly a woman, looks about Lena’s age, but for a childlike horror that lingers on her features.

From the files she could gather than it’s been seven years since she landed on their planet, a child then, a child whose escape pod had been tracked by Lillian. A child that had grown up with nothing but this cage for a home. A child who had once cried herself to sleep, but has long since stopped crying.

They tried to run experiments on her before, tried to cut her open, but the girl in the cage was bullet proof. She was fire proof. She was virtually indestructable. 

Something Lex had categorized as  _ Vexing _ . 

Only her brother would classify his inability to dissect something as vexing. 

She tells the girl this one day, uncertain if she is being understood. “My brother calls you vexing because he can’t take you apart. I must admit I am glad he can’t cut you open, you’re too beautiful for that. Are all aliens this beautiful?” 

The girl predictably doesn’t respond, but she blinks at Lena for a long moment, and Lena can’t help but consider that the girl could understand her. It’s far fetched, but surely years of being trapped here with everyone speaking English just have sinked in a little bit, maybe not enough to have a full conversation. Certainly the girl didn’t seem to be able to speak any human language, but Lena cannot help her curiosity. 

“What’s your name?”

There’s no response.

Just more blinking.

So Lena blinks back. 

Once then twice.

Before asking again, “What’s your name?”

The girl says something, the strange wind chime language again.

And well, if Lena learned one thing from watching Disney movies as a child. 

She points to herself, and says, “Lena,” before pointing towards the cage.

Then comes her reply. 

“Karasorel?” Lena repeats, pointing at the girl in the cage. “Carousel? Kara Sore Elle? Kara Sorel?”

The girl nods her head, repeating the first word again, “Kara. Kara.” She gestures with her arm to where Lena is, and then says just as Lena had, “Lena.” 

“Yes, yes, I’m Lena. Lena Luthor,” she says, “And you, you’re Kara. Kara Sorel?”

This time the girl - Kara, her name is  _ Kara _ \- nods. 

“Do you want to know everyone else’s names?” 

Another nod. 

And Lena can’t help but continue.

 

**

 

Two weeks later, Kara called Lex by his name and Lex has a conniption. 

Maybe teaching Kara their names wasn’t Lena’s best idea. 

 

**

 

“You’re teaching it to speak English,” Lillian says. 

She’s standing in Lena’s office. The office on the twelfth story of the Lex Corp building. The one that Lex had picked out for her, citing the glass walls as something that would fit Lena’s aesthetic and not just a way of making it easy for him to look in on her. 

“I am,” Lena replies. Refusing to rise from her desk. Refusing to rise to the bait. “I thought it would be a reasonable challenge for myself.” 

“To what end does this plan of your go?”

The truth was, Lena hadn’t thought that far.

She liked it though. Liked seeing Kara with something other than that fear in her eyes. Liked the way Kara said the name  _ Lena _ with her alien tongue. 

Of course, she cannot tell Lillian that.

Not when the woman is only just beginning to see Lena as something more than her husband’s pity project or her son’s pet. 

Lena smiles as best she can, and lies as she had been taught too since the day she was adopted by the Luthors. “I believe, if this alien sees me as one that she can trust. She will tell me about her people, about the threat that they pose to Earth.”

Lillian does not seem to approve of this, her lips still stuck in that permanent frown so, in a last ditch attempt Lena lies one last time.

“It was actually Lex’s idea.” 

 

**

Lex covers for her, because if nothing else he is her brother and he loves her. 

If nothing else Lena can count on that. 

(At least, she thinks she can.)

“I don’t like this,” he tells her. They’re eating take out from plastic containers, Lex aggressive using a plastic fork skewer a tiny corn - while the body of Lex’s latest acquisition, some sort of blue alien with scales, lays cut open and spread out in front of them. 

“I know, I think they used too much soy sauce again-”

“Lena, I hate it when you pretend to be dense,” he says. As if he were not the one who treated her as dense her whole childhood. 

She ignores his question by putting a piece of orange chicken in her mouth.

Lex continues unprompted, as expected. “Lying to mother is, while often necessary, not something I prefer to. Especially when it is in regards to something I am not aware of.”

“You knew I was teaching her to speak.” 

He does. 

He freaked out upon finding out and pointedly told her to stop.

“Why didn’t you tell me your reasons for doing so? It’s genius, Lena, something I don’t expect from you,” Lex continues. “Had I known, I wouldn’t have-”

“Maybe that’s why I didn’t.” 

Maybe.

Or maybe it’s because she has a much harder time lying to Lex than she does to Lillian. 

He has a way of seeing through people. 

She changes the topic quickly, “Tell me about your college friend again, Clark, right?”

And that sets Lex off all over again.

 

**

 

“How are you feeling?”

It’s the first thing Lena asks, every time she goes down to meet Kara.

It’s become a code between them. 

Lena knows Lex is watching them closer now, and Kara must sense it to. Her soft blue eyes meet Lena’s with what is clearly worry trapped within them. 

After a moment, Kara speaks, her English improving every day. 

In no time at all she will be able to blend among them. Assuming nobody tries to shoot her or set her on fire. 

“Swamp.” 

Lena’s brows furrow. That’s a new response. “Swamp, is a place, Kara. Not an emotion.” 

Kara knows that.

Lena knows Kara knows that, they’ve gone over the flashcards plenty of times, but Kara stays resolute in her decision, and simply repeats the word, “Swamp.” 

And no matter what Lena says, no other conversation comes from Kara that day. 

 

**

 

Lena is pretty sure that super hearing is a thing when she goes upstairs to find Lex far too excited examining a pod, not dissimilar to the one that had brought Kara to their planet. 

“You’ll never guess where I found this one,” Lex says, that maniac look on his face, as he pops open the pod to reveal a young man that looks frighteningly human, were it not for the knowledge of the other that Lena had possessed. 

Without thinking she speaks the very same word Kara had been speaking moments early, “A swamp?”

Lex is too excited to notice she’s beaten him to his own punchline.

For that Lena is grateful. 

 

**

 

“He’s from Daxam.” 

“Where’s Daxam?” 

Kara gives her a look as though it should be obvious.

So Lena is forced to repeat her question.

It’s hard to do this, hard to have a conversation with Kara when Lex is lurking in the back of the room. Watching them and waiting for something he can use in his experiments. At least now, he seems to appreciate her efforts to speak to Kara if only for the wrong reasons. 

(And whose fault is that? Surely, hers.)

“Where’s Daxam?”

“Space.” 

Lena sighs, “Very helpful Kara.” 

“You couldn’t get there, what does it matter?”

“It matters because-”

“Lex, please,” she snaps at her brother. Turning around to turn the full force of her glare on him. Lex doesn’t like when she acts like this. Lena’s supposed to be the little sister that plays nice, and has silly useless ideas. She’s not supposed to have authority. She’s not supposed to have the ice of a Luthor running through her veins. “You asked me to speak to her, let me do my job.” 

He’s still angry.

She’ll regret that later.

(She’s regretting it now.)

But he eventually concedes, leaning back against the wall, not before waving his hands in a way that seems to tell her to continue. 

When she turns back to Kara, she knows that there’s no more information to be gotten. Kara’s gone closed off the way she does when Lillian comes to visit, the way she does when Lex comes here alone and Lena has to watch the footage later. 

Just like that Lena is an outsider again. 

It hits her then that she cannot leave Kara here any longer.

Now Lex has a new pet project, a new invincible alien to play with.

Surely, he wouldn’t miss Kara with the man from Daxam here now. 

 

**

 

Lena presses herself as close to the bars as she can, ignoring the warnings that both Lex and Lillian has passed onto her before - that the alien was dangerous - and says in a low voice that she knows the cameras won’t pick up but that Kara will be able to with her super hearing. 

“I’m going to get you out of here.” 

Kara’s voice is equally quiet when she asks, the one question Lena has still been asking herself, “How?”

 

**

 

How.

How.

How.

The one thing Lena can’t seem to figure out.

She’s talked to Kara enough times, but Kara gets escape from her cell, the walls made from some element that keeps her trapped within them. A creation of Lex’s or something more Lena is unsure.

Though the cage is not the issue. 

Lena can open the cage, she has Lex’s codes.

It’s what comes after that, breaking out of here, betraying her whole family, without it looking like the betrayal it so clearly is.

She still loves her family. 

Well, she still loves Lex. She has never loved Lillian. 

Lex who will feel so betrayed by this. 

Who she knows will stop at nothing to hunt her down. 

Who will send people to kill her.

She loves her brother.

But she also loves Kara.

Has loved her since the moment she first saw in her that cage.

Lena had never believed in love at first sight before but Kara inspired something inside of her.

Kara made her want to be a better person, and Lena couldn’t just let that slip by her.

But the question still remained.

How.

How.

How.

 

**

 

The answer comes after nearly a month of plans that go nowhere.

A headline. 

A statistic. 

A superhero.

Finally finding his supervillain. 

 

**

 

Superman was an alien. 

A freak of nature. 

A threat to human security.

(This is what Lex had always told her.)

He is also apparently Kara’s cousin, who had been looking for her after all these years, when he found the wreckage of her pod without Kara inside.

He is also apparently Lex’s friend from college, the reporter who was just a bit too nosy when it came to the family’s  _ other  _ business.

He is also apparently the superhero that will put her brother behind bars with a life sentence. 

He is also -

“Kal, no,” Kara says. 

She’s out of the cage now.

Close enough that Lena could touch her. Maybe if this was the moment Lena died, struck down by the aliens that her brother had always warned her to fear. Maybe it would be worth it. 

If only to see Kara freed. 

“Spare her.”

Superman - Kal or Clark or whoever he was - makes a pained look of confusion at that, “The Luthors deserve to face judgement for their crimes against our race and other’s like us. For their crimes against  _ you _ .” 

“No, Lena’s not like them.” 

It confuses her at first, why they’re speaking in English rather than that beautiful and strange language of their own.

Perhaps it is for her sake. 

“She saved me.” 

“I saved you,” Superman corrects, with a flourish that means to say  _ obviously _ . 

“No,” Kara, shakes her head, “You just finished the job, Lena’s been saving me for years.”

 

**

 

She watches the trail of her brother and mother on a motel room’s tv set. 

Miles away from Metropolis.

Miles away from everything she’s even known.

But she’s not alone. 

Kara’s beside her. 

Holding her hands that shake in nervousness, in fear, in the realization that her whole life is crumbled down around her and she’s not even certain what there is left to be had. 

“You saved me,” Lena says, because this is the truth. A truth she has been quiet on for too long. 

Kara shakes her head ever so slightly, “We saved each other.” 

 


End file.
